Spring Break Deaths and Alcohol Abuse

Don’t assume your child is “too old” or “too mature” to hear the personal safety message about responsible drinking, especially as they leave for Spring Break. Every year these horrible Spring Death stories make the headlines. 2016 is no different. In the last several weeks, as happens every year, several college students have died in alcohol-related Spring Break accidents. In Florida, a 20-year-old student died after getting drunk and falling from a parking garage. In Texas, a 21-year-old died from alcohol poisoning while on Spring Break. Another 21-year-old fell from a hotel balcony and died earlier this month after a day of drinking. And the body of a Texas teen who wandered away from a Spring Break concert in Florida recently washed up on a beach in Mexico.

What might surprise some parents is that students in their early 20s, even those who are legally old enough to drink, are making some deadly decisions. Parents may feel that by the time their kids are 19 or 20 they’ve had that “drink responsibly” talk enough times that it has sunk in. Lesson learned: have it again. And again. And again.